Winter of Discontent in the High Sierra : Weather: The heavy snow ended the drought, but residents have been pushed to the limit by avalanches, fatal blasts and fear.

Bodies are piling up at the Truckee-Tahoe Mortuary. The snow is so deep that the gravediggers have been idled until spring’s thaw.

A few peaks away in Markleeville, Charlie Dobson believes he is “the luckiest guy in the world.” An avalanche of powder gobbled him up one morning in January, but after 35 terrifying minutes, a Caltrans worker dug him out.

Rebecca Hamil of Chester is thankful too. She lost her long hair and all her belongings in a fiery explosion after snowdrifts snapped a propane pipe to her home. Somehow, Hamil got herself and her three kids out alive.

What a winter it has been in the Sierra Nevada. They knew it would come--begged and prayed that it would. But the relentless rain and snow that finally slew the Great California Drought were an awfully mighty jolt--a siege that punished even as it pleased.

Mountain people consider themselves a durable lot, prepared and able to cope, come what may. But gentle winters breed complacency, and California had six of them in a row.

“We got out of practice,” said Plumas County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jerry Young, who admits he has lived in snow country long enough to know better. “We’ve had big winters before--lots of ‘em. But somehow, you just forget.”

You forget, for instance, that winter can be a ruthless predator. Charlie Dobson did. A firefighter who works the cold months at Kirkwood ski resort, Dobson is a seasoned snow person--a guy who has spent 17 of his 30 years in the remote Alpine County woods.

But this winter he got careless, stepping out of his truck beneath a treacherous snow cliff on Carson Pass. Just then, an avalanche tore loose, entombing him in icy drifts. He screamed awhile, then blacked out. Only the quick work of rescuers--and a tiny air pocket in front of his face--saved his life.

Dobson, a baseball fan, is in Arizona, soothing his frayed nerves with a dose of spring training. Edward Conrad of Lakeport had no such chance. He died when he was swallowed by an avalanche New Year’s Eve while romping in fresh snow with his nephew near Mammoth Lakes.

At least eight others died in propane explosions, the Sierra winter’s other deadly footnote. Veteran mountain dwellers know that piles of snow can tweak a gas line or freeze the propane regulator open, allowing leaks that will easily ignite.

But memories lapse, and lots of people moved to Truckee and other mountain towns during the drought. Fooled by the persistently dry conditions, many transplants never learned about propane and other winter hazards. When a batch of blizzards finally blew in, they just weren’t ready.

The fatal blasts spawned fear, and that fueled another consequence absent in the Sierra for a good many winters: stress. It was a deceptive thing, because it didn’t settle in right away. Back in December, in fact, the snow was greeted as a glorious gift--a symbol of great skiing, a festive Christmas and liberation from the drought.

But the storms kept coming, and soon the endless hassles of shoveling, barren grocery shelves and perilous driving soured the mood. The oppressive sense of color deprivation--created by gray skies and hulking white berms of plowed snow--made things worse.

“At first, everyone was laughing, joking, helping each other out,” said Jerry Koloske of Quincy, who got fed up with winter when the roof of his motel collapsed. “But after two weeks of snow, snow, snow, people weren’t so friendly anymore.”

Some of them snapped. When his car became buried by snow one January day, a man in Mammoth Lakes went home, grabbed a .357 magnum and took his wife and son hostage. They escaped, and the man was charged and sent to a counselor.

There were scuffles over shovels in hardware stores, assaults on snowplow drivers, and scowls, threats and shouting matches in the streets. In the Mammoth Times, one beleaguered winter victim ran this ad at the height of the January blizzards: “The person who stole the shovel from Tamarack 25: I know who you are. Please return it NOW!”

The merciless snowfall “created a sense of isolation, a sense of helplessness and of being trapped,” said Kathern Mitchell of Wild Iris Women’s Services in Mammoth. She has proof: Crisis calls to the agency rose 76% in the heaviest storm months of January and February.

Mark McLaughlin, a weather historian in the Lake Tahoe area, said such winter Angst is relatively new for California.

“In the old days people would just go with the flow--strap on snowshoes or simply stock up and bolt down ‘til it eased up,” said McLaughlin, who spent a pleasant February in Brazil. Now, “we’re impatient and get (angry) if we can’t get over the summit at any time, in any weather. It’s silly. We have to learn to relax.”

Tragedy and tension aside, the winter of 1992-93 was not strictly a tale of misery. The drought was done in, after all, and ski resorts--while stung by blizzards that thinned crowds over Christmas and New Year’s--enjoyed a bounty of snow that will allow them to stay open well into spring.

Snowplow operators, tow truck drivers and chain installers had a banner season after six lean years, as did purveyors of shovels, snowshoes, snow blowers, liquor and assorted other implements needed to cope with the drifts.

In Plumas County, where unemployment has soared in part because of lumber mill closures, jobless people with strong backs suddenly had plenty of work--often fetching $20 an hour for clearing roofs and driveways of snow.

Still other perks of the season may lie ahead. At Yosemite National Park, officials predict the falls will roar as they haven’t in a decade. And California’s cattle and sheep ranchers say the drought-ravaged grazing range has rebounded beautifully, raising expectations for a productive year.

Spring arrived last week, but for some, winter’s consequences continue. Truckee mortician Joe Aguera still cannot bury bodies, fearing his backhoe might roll over graves and headstones covered with snow.

In Lassen County, unusually large numbers of deer and pronghorn antelope are dying off, the victims of merciless snows and a scarcity of food.

And in the tiny Plumas County city of Portola, melting snow has overwhelmed the storm drains, causing sewage to bubble out of manholes and pollute the Feather River. City officials, who saw the collapse of the city’s only major food market in January, have ordered residents to skip showers and let laundry pile up until the flow subsides.

“How am I coping?” said City Administrator Stacey MacDonald, who began her job one day after the biggest blizzard hit. “Do you have any Valium?”

Barbara Moore lives high up in the eastern Sierra, overlooking Mono Lake. Moore was snowbound alone for a month this winter, because there wasn’t a plow in Mono County big enough to clear the eight feet of powder on her road.

Food wasn’t a big problem--she had stocked up on that--and her three dogs and two cats were good company. But shoveling--the roof, the doorway, the windows, the woodpile--was an exhausting ordeal, especially for a 67-year-old.

Moore, a writer and Sierra historian, said one image helped to keep her from giving up--that of a 1930s movie star named Nellie Bly O’Bryan.

“She built a place in Lundy Canyon, just across from me, and spent her first winter up there all alone, in 1938,” Moore said. “I kept thinking of her, snowshoeing for miles down to the highway, catching a ride into Lee Vining to get her mail, and hiking back. She had no phone, no hope of a snowplow.

“I guess I just figured if she could do it, then so could I.”